Extract from ABC News
Rains have sent waterfalls down the face of iconic tourist attraction Uluru. (Supplied: Meegan Ebert)
In short:
Heavy rains have soaked large parts of Central Australia in recent days, sending waterfalls down Uluru and filling Alice Springs's usually dry Todd River.
In some remote communities, the weather has cut off roads and led to telecommunications outages.
Further north, flooding at the Daly River community has now reached its predicted peak of 14.1m.
Vast parts of the Northern Territory are being soaked by wet weather this week, with heavy rain falling across much of Central Australia for the past several days and flooding reaching peak levels in the Top End community of Daly River.
In a rare sight for lucky travellers, recent downpours have caused water to cascade off the 550-million-year-old face of Uluru.
Waterfalls on Uluru are a rare sight. (Supplied: Meegan Ebert)
According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), the nearby town of Yulara has recorded 55 millimetres of rain over Sunday and Monday.
Further north, in Alice Springs, the rain has filled up the usually dry Todd River, sending it surging through the town and bringing excited locals down to the riverbed to see for themselves.
BOM data shows about 70 millimetres of rain has fallen in Alice Springs since last Thursday.
While the recent rain in Central Australia has been welcomed by many, for some in remote areas its impact on infrastructure has caused havoc.
The heavy rain has sent the Todd River flowing through Alice Springs. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
The Todd River is usually dry. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
The Tanami Road, which connects Alice Springs to many Aboriginal communities stretching all the way to the Western Australian border, has been closed due to flooding, affecting thousands of residents.
About 80 kilometres south of Alice Springs, the community of Santa Teresa/Ltyentye Apurte has also been cut off, with its road declared impassable from the turn-off at Alice Springs Airport.
The Central Australian rains have caused further damage on the Santa Teresa Road. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
Atyenhenge Atherre Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Ellie Kamara said the recent heavy rain had left the unsealed road — already in a poor state — in a "terrible condition" and the worst she had seen it in half a decade.
"It's been completely decimated — the top soil, the top gravel, has been washed away completely, and it's just exposed the most enormous pot holes,"she said.
She said teachers and social services had been unable to access the community due to large swathes of the road being washed away, while renal patients had been transferred to Alice Springs to stay while they received treatment.
Further south, a number of remote communities, including Titjikala, have been experiencing telecommunications outages, which Ms Kamara said was due to rain and cloud cover affecting their solar power operations.
Flooding has led to the Hugh River swelling in size, cutting road access for some remote communities. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
A Telstra spokesperson said flooding in the area had affected technology in a number of communities and was preventing safe access to the Telstra tower for repairs, but noted a technician was headed to the community to investigate further, with the aim of restoring service soon.
"Satellite services are not affected … we are doing our best to keep [the communities] connected," the spokesperson said.
Heavy rains have triggered telecommunications outages in some communities. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
West of Alice Springs, flooding and impassable roads have forced the closure of a number of national parks, including the Finke Gorge National Park, most destinations in the Tjoritja/West MacDonnell National Park and waterholes further west.
To the east, the N'Dhala Gorge Nature Park and Arltunga Historical Reserve have also been closed.
Daly River flooding reaches peak
In the Top End, flooding at the community of Daly River reached its predicted 14.1 metre peak on Tuesday afternoon, according to BOM data — surpassing the 14m major flood level.
Almost 300 people were evacuated out of the community — located 220 kilometres south-west of Darwin — last week, with only a handful of people staying behind.
In a statement earlier on Tuesday, the BOM said the flood peak was expected to be "prolonged".
"The river level is likely to fall below the major flood level from Wednesday into Thursday and is expected to remain above the moderate flood level for the rest of the week and into the weekend," the bureau said.
"In the upstream reaches, small renewed rises have been observed in the past 24 hours due to local rainfall, which may prolong elevated levels along the Daly River over the next few days."
Daly River has been flooding for days, with locals evacuated last week ahead of the predicted rise in water levels. (Supplied)
Speaking to ABC Radio Darwin, incident controller Gavin Kennedy said the Daly River residents who had been evacuated to Darwin would receive financial relief payments from this Thursday.
He said residents would initially receive 25 per cent while they were in Darwin, and the rest would be made available when they returned to Daly River.
He said "a lot has to occur" before the evacuees could be returned home.
"We're planning at a feverish pace to make that transition as quickly as possible … but there is water throughout the community, every road within the community has water across it," he said.
"There are some [homes] that have water going underneath the doors, but nothing really that we've seen so far that is above ankle height going through any houses."
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